K’taka waives institutional quarantine for state returnees

Bengaluru, July 6 (IANS) The Karnataka government has waived the requirement of institutional quarantine for returnees from Maharashtra and other states amid further relaxations in Unlock 2.0, an official said on Monday.

“Persons coming from other states to Karnataka, including Maharashtra, shall be placed in 14-day home quarantine,” said Revenue Department Principal Secretary N. Manjunatha Prasad.

In the last tweaking of the quarantine norms on June 28, Prasad waived the 3-day institutional quarantine requirement for returnees from Delhi and Tamil Nadu, but left Maharashtra returnees untouched, which had to undergo one-week institutional quarantine and another week in home quarantine.

With the latest guidelines, no state returnee will have to undergo institutional quarantine in Karnataka as long as they are not Covid-19 positive. However, most other conditions mandated in the earlier orders will continue to be in force.

The waiver for Maharashtra returnees comes in the light of infections from that state returnees plummeting drastically in the past few days. Earlier, most infections in the southern state were traced to Maharashtra returnees.

Currently, the contacts of earlier corona positive cases are the chief contributors to the state’s infections — more than 80 per cent of the cases every day.

Prasad said: “Quarantine norms are regularly reviewed and calibrated with the prevailing Unlock 2.0 guidelines and infusion of technology and community involvement to enforce strict home quarantine.”

Meanwhile, Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa has said that the country should learn to live with coronavirus as there is no other option.

The southern state is grappling with a Covid tally of 23,474 cases, of which 13,251 are active.

Bengaluru has emerged as the corona hotspot, accounting for 8,167 active cases or 62 per cent of all active cases.

The total Covid deaths in the state are 372.

–IANS

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